A Look Back at the... Pioneer-Tribune Archives

50 Years Ago November 29, 1962

• Roland Hoholik, hunting out of the This-Is-It Hunting club on Thompson Plains, shot an 8-point buck weighing 140 pounds on Nov. 12, and a 200 pound bear the first day of the season. In his hunting party were Bill Wedegartner, Ossie Smits, Don Messier and Don Hoholik.

• Improvement of the highway freeway system in lower Michigan has resulted in accelerated service to local mail patrons. Mail from lower Michigan which formerly arrived by truck about noon now arrives in the Manistique Post Office one hour earlier, at approximately 11 a.m.

• State Police are investigating the breaking and entering of a cabin owned by John Dulek, Escanaba, located a mile north and east of Isabella. The incident was reported last Thursday. Missing are two cases of beer, a 10-pound pork roast, and a 55-gallon fuel oil drum.

• The Cooks 4-H Club has a program underway which includes a large group of boys who are studying forestry and gun safety. Mr. Matthew Walter is the leader for these projects. Working with the girls in various clothing projects are Mrs. Matthew Walter, Mrs. Junior Middaugh and Mrs. William Haindl. Assisting are junior leaders Catherine Zirnhelt, Judy Zirnhelt and Mary Peterson.

• A truck loaded with pulp wood and driven by Emerald D. Mercier, 28, Garden, overturned on the Garden Road two miles south of U.S. 2 at 1 p.m. last Thursday, State Police reported. Mercier told officers that the lug wheel bolts came off, causing the truck to loose a wheel.

• A tree planting program has been started at Central Park by the City Park Committee. Leonard Walters of the Valley Nursery has been hired to conduct the planting program, and to prune and cultivate a few trees that were put in several years ago. Mrs. Elmer Lundstrom of the park committee said they are hopeful that more trees can be added each year. She said that Frank S. Hoholik, president of the Manistique Pulp and Paper Company, has promised to plant some trees inside the park fence to make the area more attractive.

• A series of meetings in Cooks, Nahma, Garden and Fairport areas to explain a proposed area school merger are being planned. The meetings will elaborate on the recommendations of a five school district study that was recently concluded.

35 Years Ago December 1, 1977

• An 87-year-old house and former riding academy on Manistique River Road burned to the ground on Tuesday. The blaze, cause undetermined as of Wednesday, started in the rear of the building and quickly climbed the twostory wooden structure and ignited the roof. No one was home at the time, according to Mike Boyd, who had recently moved into the house with his wife. Manistique Public safety officers and volunteer firemen answered a call at 10:50 a.m. from a neighbor who spotted smoke coming from the 10-room house. Water from the city’s 500-gallon capacity tanker-pumper was rapidly expended, however, and the flames reached the roof while the truck had left to refill. Officers said no back up tanker or nearby source of water was available. Losses were estimated at more than $25,000.

• At the regular meeting of the Manistique Area Schools Board of Education last week, the board was reminded by the superintendent on the school’s legal position on raffles. Richard Bonifas said the raffles are illegal and unconstitutional and the school should not be associated with them. However, he said that the laws are being violated all the time. Bonifas said he tries to prohibit such raffles from the school. However, he said sometime the sponsors are perfectly innocent, in not knowing the law.

25 Years Ago December 3, 1987

• When most area dads visit their sons at work, they don’t have to fly all the way to Hawaii to do it. But when your son is a Data Systems Electronic Maintenance Technician on the largest conventionally-powered combat vessel in the world, you can consider it a privilege to see him work. Thanks to the Navy’s “Tiger Cruise” program, Jim LaFave of Manistique was able to see his son Bill at work. Bill 21, is a third-class petty officer in the Navy aboard the aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Constellation. The “Tiger Cruise ‘87” program allowed sailors’ male friends and relatives over eight years of age to spend a week aboard the Constellation. LaFave boarded the craft on Oct. 7 in Hawaii, and arrived in San Diego, Cal., on Oct. 13.

• A committee formed more than 16 years ago to assist in recruiting doctors to serve this area was revived at a meeting held at Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital Tuesday. Hospital Trustees had been given authority over the $1,361 remaining in the Health Resources Fund, first organized in 1973. It had been inactive since 1975. Donations from area units of government, businesses and individuals totaled more than $5,500 when the fund was established, and the money was used to successfully woo several doctors to the area. Hospital Administrator David Jahn, reviewing the history of the fund, said this area is currently in need of an internist and a family physician.

10 Years Ago November 28, 2002

• Work on Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital’s Woodland Meadows Assisted Living Center has been continuing throughout the fall and is still on schedule to be completed in the spring. Project officials expect to have the walls and roof finished next month, so that work can move indoors, out of the weather. The 20-unit facility is being built on Intake Park Road/Riverview Drive across from the city of Manistique’s water treatment plant.

• According to Michigan State Police troopers from the Manistique Post, a 66-year-old hunter from the eastern Upper Peninsula was found dead in the Seney National Wildlife Refuge in the early morning hours of Monday, Nov. 25. Troopers say they were notified Sunday afternoon that Charles Dean Muscott of St. Ignace was missing. Described as an experienced hunter, he had last been seen hunting in the wildlife refuge at approximately 1 p.m. that day. Troopers immediately requested two K9 units from the Negaunee and Sault Ste. Marie State Police posts. Also assisting in the search were DNR officers, Schoolcraft County Search and Rescue personnel and a U.S. Coast Guard rescue helicopter. At approximately 1:19 a.m. Monday, Muscott’s body was located by a helicopter crew. Troopers say Muscott had a history of heart problems, and there was no sign of a gunshot wound.

• Last Thursday’s district defeat against the Saint Ignace Saints wasn’t only the last game of the season for the varsity players, it was also the last game the senior members of the team would play. Seniors leaving the team include Tara Bjorne, Ashley Jahn, Donna Lynts and Tina Bontekoe.